Exactly the Same and Completely Different
by StonkFaery
Summary: Did Jim have any friends as a kid? It was a question he tried to avoid. No one likes talking about the ghosts from their past, least of all James T. Kirk. Unfortunately, the past becomes unavoidable when he finds himself face to face with someone he'd long thought to be dead.
1. All in the Past (Prologue)

" _What happened this time, Jimmy?" the older man said with a sigh. Even at 11, Jim Kirk knew the meaning behind doctor's tone. The disbelief in his voice, that would, nonetheless, avoid giving rise to questioning the story his uncle had forced Jim to rehearse on the oh-so-familiar ride to the hospital._

 _Jim knew it was worse than usual this time. The fact the he could only see the weary creases of the ancient doctor's face out of one eye, made blurry with the blinding pain that laced his every breath, told him as much._

 _"Stole Frank's bike again. Managed to get thrown off." He shortened the story to a length his shallow breaths would allow, forcing a half smile as the doctor administered a hypospray to his neck._

 _The man's lips were pursed, disappearing into a thin line that turned ever-so-slightly down at the corners. "Yeah, thrown off and into a wall, maybe. Two bruised ribs, one cracked. A sprained wrist. Hairline fractures in your left shin, and in your jaw. That's what's got your eye swollen shut. That's not even taking into consideration the bruising and lacerations. You're here for the long-haul, kid. I'm not letting you back out of those doors for a least a week, provided all those fractures have healed properly."_

 _A week in the hospital. Boy, was he gonna get it from Frank for this. It didn't even matter that it was Frank who put him here in the first place. Everything was always Jim's fault, a fact he'd learned pretty quickly to accept. If he'd just listen, Frank wouldn't have to punish him. If he'd just be a good boy and follow the rules, Frank could ignore him like his mother did, and they could both go on living in some semblance of a symbiotic relationship. But that's not how Jim worked._

 _A team of nurses help the doctor move him onto a hospital bed and got to work healing, starting with the superficial wounds and leaving the ones that would be most painful to deal with for later, when the meds would have kicked in. The physical healing itself would only take a few hours, maybe a day a most. Ah, the marvels of modern medicine (he'd heard a doctor say that once on TV, though he wasn't completely sure what it meant). He was strangely used to the process, but it was usually only one or two bones at most that needed a good patching up. This many definitely warranted an extended stay, as much as the kid hated the idea of spending a week in the unnatural antiseptic cleanliness of the hospital. At least it would give him a week to prepare for Frank._

 _..._

 _It was day two of his stay. His bones were mostly healed up, but he'd been ordered to stay in bed. And it was driving him crazy. The smell, the stillness, especially the quiet that came at night. His mind raced and sleep never came easily. His legs itched to leave the starched white sheets._

 _The nursing staff tended to shirk their duties in the small hours of the night. It was a small county hospital, and the regulations weren't nearly as tight as they would have been at one of the bigger Federation-run ones. It was 2am, Jim could very easily get up and do some exploring without having to worry about getting caught for at least 2 hours._

 _What was he waiting for?_

 _The cool sting of the floor against the bare soles of his feet made him feel alive. Even if he got caught, at this point he wouldn't even regret it. A quick glance down the hallway told him he was right, no nurses were making their rounds. He slowly eased out into the corridor and took a left, deeper into the hospital._

 _"Hello?"_

 _The small voice that came from the room he'd passed, just next door to his, caused him to jump about a mile into the air. Was there a nurse on duty after all? No. The voice sounded more like it had belonged to a kid, someone his own age. Never one to pass up adventure, he strode into the room with a false air of confidence._

 _A small, fragile looking girl was huddle beneath the pale sheets, her blue-green eyes peering out, round and curious, from a gaunt face. Her head was smooth, the only trace of hair on it being the thick, dark lashes rimming those eyes._

 _"What are you doing out of bed? It's the middle of the night!" she asked incredulously._

 _He let out an amused snort. "You're telling me you like staying in these beds when you can't sleep?"_

 _"No," she looked incensed now. "I just don't have much choice."_

 _For the first time since entering the room, he took in the soft whir of the many machines hooked up to the girl with wide eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't-"_

 _She threw her head back and let out a musical laugh. When she'd finished she shot him a grin._

 _"What?"_

 _"I think that's the first time someone's ever missed seeing the machines."_

 _..._

 _Her name was Olivia-Oli for short. Same age as he was, should actually even be at the same school. He'd never met her before, though, because she'd pretty much been living in the hospital from the age of 5, when she'd been diagnosed with a slow growing, hard to cure cancer that had her in a constant limbo between life and death._

 _Their friendship evolved over the following years, with him in and out of the hospital until, around the age of 14, he was big enough to no longer be completely helpless in the face of his uncle. He'd continued to visit her weekly-sometimes more often, and sometimes landing himself back in the hospital after the occasional bar fight-for the next two years. Those rare times when she wasn't in the hospital, or was unhooked from the machines that seemingly kept her alive, their adventures were the stuff of legend. Never before had there been someone he'd really allowed himself to call a friend. Caring about people only ever led to the heartbreak that came when they left. But for 5 years, there she'd stayed, one of the few constants in his life._

 _..._

 _It was the fall of his Junior year of High School. The cold nipped at his nose and he pulled his scarf up to cover it in response. His backpack was slung carelessly over one shoulder, and he cradled his skateboard under the opposite arm. It was a Friday, the day he normally visited her. He'd missed visiting the week before after a blowup between his mom and Frank that resulted in him getting a bloodied nose. That wasn't something she needed to see again. He saw the worry in her eyes every time she took in an injury that marred his face. Those were the only ones he couldn't cover up._

 _He loped up the stairs and threw the doors open, striding to the front desk and giving a charming smile to the nurse that always bent the rules by letting him back to see Oli for hours at a time. This time, however, she didn't smile back. Something was off, but he tried not to jump to conclusions. It didn't necessarily mean anything was off at the hospital. The nurse may have just had an off day._

 _"James T. Kirk, here visiting Olivia M. Guimares. Do I get a sticker this week, or did you finally get in those snazzy new badges for VIP visitors like myself?" he quipped, eyebrows quirked in a sarcastic expression, trying to act like he hadn't noticed her lack of reaction._

 _The nurse looked strained and hesitated before answering. "I'm...I'm sorry Mr. Kirk, but she's not here."_

 _No. Not here. Not here? His mind reeled. If she wasn't here, where was she? Did he even want to know? That was silly, of course he wanted to know. Not knowing would kill him._

 _"What happened?"_

 _He winced. He'd meant to ask where she was, but his subconscious seemed to be a little less optimistic than he'd like._

 _"I'm sorry, I can't-"_

 _"Like hell you can't!" he bristled, fists slamming into the desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ancient doctor that had treated him since he was a kid, coming in with whatever 'punishment' Frank had decided to dish out. The same doctor that had attended to Oli's mishmash of machines and medications. He jumped the desk, running-more than walking-over to him. "Where's Oli? What happened?" He had to know._

 _The man sighed, managing to somehow look considerably older than his many years. "Look, Jimmy, you know I can't-"_

 _"Don't give me the same shit she did. We're talking about my best friend. You know she'd tell me herself if she were here."_

 _After some deliberation, the man answered. "The most I can tell you is that she had a medical emergency that required her to be transferred to the Federation hospital in Chicago late Wednesday night. I don't know what happened after she left our care."_

 _"...will she be back?" Of course she'd be back. Her family lived here. As soon as she was well enough, she'd return and everything would be back to normal._

 _"I don't know, Jimmy."_

 _..._

 _It was a year later that he finally gave up the hope of her returning._

 _He'd taken to going by her house every day on the way to school, looking for a sign that she was there, that her family had returned and she was better._

 _His heart had plummeted when he'd seen the moving trucks, the unfamiliar men packing the family's things into boxes._

 _She wouldn't be coming back._

 _..._

 _It was 11 years after he'd met her that he found himself sitting on a table in a bar, two napkins shoved up either side of his nose to stem the flow of hot, thick blood. Judging by the way the room swam, he was likely concussed as well, but none of this was new to him. It was for this very reason that he was banned from all the bars within walking distance of his apartment. Sure, it made things with the ladies a little more difficult when getting back to his place was a little more than inconvenient, but oh the stories he had to tell because of it..._

 _A ruffled looking Captain Pike rested his burning gaze on Jim. Disappointment. It was a look he thought he'd grown immune to. Evidently not._

 _The next morning, he found himself on a transport to the Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. Iowa, and the many painful memories he'd buried there, would stay in his past, possibly forever if he managed to not get thrown out of the Fleet._


	2. Recollections

"Next!", the rather stern lieutenant in charge of combat training yelled, signaling for Jim and his opponent to take the mat. Man, was he ready. Combat was where he excelled. Years of bar fights made for much better training than the stuffy "proper" instruction they were given at the academy, in his opinion.

He fidgeted with his helmet, adjusting the display to clear off the distracting readouts and analysis that would otherwise continue to flash across his vision throughout the spar. He couldn't stand all of the extra equipment. Slowed him down too much. The masks and suits they wore for spars were, in theory, supposed to allowed them to go all out on their opponents without causing any permanent damage, as well as eliminate any gender or personal biases the cadets may have. Not even their added bulk could stop his opponent from looking like a twig, though. If it was a guy, he sure never hit the weight room. This would be a cakewalk.

The lieutenant didn't even get a chance to tell them to start before Jim was caught unexpectedly by a kick to the chest.

Stumbling backwards, he quickly righted himself and launched at his opponent, any civility he'd been considering to show them gone. If they wanted to play dirty, he'd give it to them alright.

Dirty he could do. He'd been raised on it.

But instead of connecting solidly with the other cadet, he found his face connecting a little more than solidly with the mat. Damn, it wasn't nearly as padded as it looked.

"Too slow," a distinctly feminine voice chimed from a position just left of where he was now sprawled on the floor. "Gonna have to think a little faster, hm?"

Hopping back up, he decided the only way he'd be able to counteract her speed would be to keep her close, making his attacks harder to predict or dodge. He closed in on her and swung a right hook.

She caught his fist and used the momentum to break his balance, allowing her to get behind him and give him a kick that sent his helmet skidding across the floor. Not that he minded too terribly much, the only purpose it served was to get in the way.

Plastering his most roguish grin onto his face, he turned and quipped, "Undressing me already? We haven't even intr-"

"Jim?" His opponent interrupted, taking a few steps back, hands raised as if to surrender.

 _The hell..?_ "What, have we slept together before or something?" He rambled a bit, trying to appear unphased. _Who the hell were they?_ '"Think I'd remember someone as feisty as..."

The words died in his throat as his opponent began to remove her mask. _No. NO. That can't be right. Exactly how much did I drink last night?_ The face was one he hadn't seen in years, with the exception of in the occasional dream-or nightmare, depending on how you looked at it.

She looked the exactly same and completely different all at once. The large, blue-green eyes. The thin, too-angular figure. The sharp cheekbones. The thick, dark brows and lashes, now joined by a similar crop of wavy chin-length hair. The small, pretty mouth. The nose that was, in truth, a little large, but he'd always liked it anyways. She was older, sure, but she didn't really look it. Always had had a bit of a baby face. Her height was the only real shock. She stood at about 5'11", almost 6'. She'd always seemed so small to him, but now their eyes were almost level.

Hell. That wasn't the actual shock. The shock was that she was here. Alive. Standing in front of him and kicking his ass in a spar, rather than dead in the ground somewhere in Iowa. That's where she was supposed to be, right? He'd always assumed. Her family had moved out. She never came back. The doctors had said it didn't look good. But no one had ever actually told him she'd died.

He'd looked her up a few times, but never came up with anything. Sealed medical records. A birth certificate. But nothing that suggested she was still alive. Now, he'd never found an obituary, or any sort of death record either, but that was something the family could easily had kept under wraps. He hadn't even questioned it.

But he should have. She'd been alive the entire time. While he'd been sifting through files and articles, trying to find some sort of closure, trying to process losing his best friend, she'd been alive.

He threw his hands up in the air and began to back off the mat, his mind racing. He had to get some air. It was suddenly so hard to breathe.

"I forfeit."

"Like hell you forfeit, cadet. Back on the mat," the lieutenant bristled, livid that his training was being interrupted. He'd been enjoying watching that Kirk bratt get his ass handed to him.

But Jim was already walking out of the gym, moving to a jog as he reached the doors, desperately needing something a little easier to breathe than the thick, sweaty air in the training room. The thoughts clamming around in his head were so loud that he didn't even notice the sound of the doors opening behind him a few seconds after he'd passed through..

 _She's alive._ But what did that even mean? He didn't want to keep thinking about it. Just wanted out. Wanted air.

He was outside now, pushing through the crowds of cadets moving between buildings, on their ways to classes and training exercises. A few shot peeved looks in his direction, but he just kept moving.

He finally reached the railing at the edge of the courtyard, leaning heavily on it and starting out across the bay, trying to catch his breath.

 _In, two three. Out, two three. In again...  
_  
A figure leaned tentatively on the railing next to him. He didn't need to look over to know who it was.

"Jim..."

"No," he said, his voice more gruff than he'd intended. "You died. You were _dead_." His voice caught a little as he said those words out loud. It was something he'd always believed, sure, but he'd never voiced it. He hadn't wanted to consider any alternative, because that would mean she'd abandoned him, just like everyone else, and she'd promised not to do that, not to him. She'd _promised_. A stupid promise made to a stupid, drunken kid, but a promise nonetheless...

 _They were 13. Or more,_ she _was thirteen. He still had another 2 hours and 37 minutes to go. It was his birthday, and it was also the first time he got truly, properly drunk. Frank had left the liquor cabinet unlocked, and Jim had "borrowed" his uncle's best bottle of scotch and headed out to the barn. Half a bottle later-maybe more, he'd dropped it at some point that night and lost track of how much he'd had-he found himself knocking on her window, a drunken mess. It was one of the rare nights she was at her house, a reprieve from her extended hospital stays. She'd unlocked the window and helped him through it, telling him to shut up before her dad heard and skinned Jim alive. They talked. About his birthday. About his dad. His mom. His older brother. All the people who left him, leaving him with Frank. The people he wanted always left, and she couldn't do that to him, he'd said. Well, more sobbed than said. She'd hugged him and told him she would never do that to him._

"Well, I think it's a bit obvious that's not the truth..." she said gently. She hesitantly reached her hand out towards his, which was resting on top of the railing, unsure of how she should handle the situation..

He tensed at her touch, but didn't jump away, instead turning his furious, hurt gaze on her. "What, so you just left?" His voice rose shrilly. "You didn't even think about what losing you would do to me? You knew how many people I've lost. You knew, and what, you just didn't care?"

"Jim, that's not what happened at all-"

"Then WHAT the hell happened?!" he yelled, fists slamming into the railing like they'd slammed into that desk in the hospital years before. The outburst caused people passing to take in the scene.

"Not here," she kept her voice soft, and looked around, embarrassed by the commotion they were causing. "I'll explain everything, just..."

"Just _what_ , Oli?"

She winced at how he said her name, his voice dripping with anger and betrayal. All the sharpness of a dagger, meant for her.

"Can we just sit down and talk someplace a little less...public?" She kept her voice even, but he could see the pain behind her eyes. A pain he'd put there. His 16 year old self was begging him to let her explain why she'd left.

With a tired, defeated sigh, he ran a hand roughly down his face and slowly met her gaze. "My room," he said shortly, tugging her hand behind him in a motion to indicate that she should follow.

Jim fumbled with the keypad on his door, fighting the waves of emotions that were competing for dominance. He had no idea how to feel, no idea how he _should_ feel. Betrayed? Happy that one of the only friends he'd ever had was alive? Confused? He somehow felt both none and all of those at once.

He finally got the door open and led her inside, too distracted to notice Bones in the corner, who was hunched over his desk in deep concentration, until the gruff doctor let out a groan of protest.

"Cmon Jim, it's one thing to bring a girl back, but did you really have to chose the curve breaker from the very class I'm in the process of preparing to fail? I mean, seriously man, thousands of girls to choose from and you just have to bring back the one that's kicking my ass in analytical chem?" Bones had picked up a few courses in between shifts at the Federation Hospital to get his Starfleet certification.

Jim blinked at him for a moment, only half processing what the doctor was saying. He struggled to find words.

"This is Oli."

"Yeah, trust me, I know. Olivia-Marie. The damned commander's favorite."

"No, Bones, this is _Oli_."

The doctor looked at Jim as though he was having a stroke before it finally clicked. McCoy's mouth fell open slightly as he began to realized what his friend was saying. He ran a hand through his already-mussed hair, making it stick up at even odder angles. "Well...I'll be damned."

Sitting down heavily in a chair, Jim steepled his fingers under his nose, staring intently at the sheets on his bed as though they now held all the answers to life's secrets. He was so tired. Bones and Oli just stood there awkwardly, both waiting on his cue, uncertain. When it became clear that Jim wasn't going to say anything, Bones decided to take his leave.

"Well, I'll leave you kids to it. Gotta go caffeinate anyways, if I have any hope of not getting thrown out of Starfleet tomorrow." He rubbed the scruff the covered the bottom half of his face, still trying to comprehend the odd situation, before he left and closed the door quickly behind him, leaving a stony silence between the two former friends.

Neither seemed to want to speak first, but the longer the silence, the angrier Kirk grew. He wanted answers too much to keep the charade up for much longer.

"Either speak or leave. Your choice."

A sad look passed across her face and she went to sit, suddenly jumping back up when she realized the bed she'd been about to take a seat on was Jim's. She looked nervous, worried about invading his privacy and space, and he felt a stone of guilt rise to the base of his throat. Things had never been this uncomfortable between them before.

"It's fine, you can sit there," he said gently, face softening slightly. With the anger gone from his eyes, he was left looking exhausted. She was scared of him. Didn't know how to act around him. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.

She tentatively took a seat across from him and steeled herself for meeting his gaze. As soon as she'd found the courage to look up, she launched into her story, knowing that any hesitation as she looked at his drained expression would mean she'd lose the energy to tell it.

"It'd been about a week and a half since your last visit..."


End file.
